Wait ends as Stalin anointed DMK’s working president

Accepting what he termed as a ‘responsibility and not a post’ entrusted to him owing to Karunanidhi’s illness with a ‘heavy heart’, an emotionally moved Stalin said that he had felt proud and happy when he had assumed new responsibilities in the past, but not in this instance. 

As much as the cadre brimmed with enthusiasm and applauded thunderously at the packed Kalaignar Hall in Anna Arivalayam moments after party Organising Secretary RS Bharati proposed an amendment to the party bylaw to create the post of executive president and subsequently general secretary K Anbazhagan announced Stalin’s name for the same, emotions overflowed when a towering Headquarters Secretary Duraimurugan, who seconded the resolution elevating and empowering Stalin, sobbed profusely over Karunanidhi’s absence and left many, including Stalin, teary eyed, before asking the man of the moment to lead them from the front. Wednesday’s was the first ever GC meeting ‘missed’ by Karunanidhi. 

Maintaining his composure, a visibly shaken Stalin, who refused to thank but only offered to accept the post in his final acceptance speech, said that his role as working president would be that of aiding Karunanidhi. He also vowed to function responsibly and follow the course charted by the president, general secretary and other senior leaders of the party. 

Sixty-three-year-old Stalin would also continue to hold the other party posts, mainly the party treasurer’s. Emerging out of the general council, Stalin left for Gopalapuram and took the DMK patriarch’s blessings. He also paid floral tributes at the memorials of the party’s ideological and political mentors Periyar and Anna whom he had forgotten to mention in his acceptance speech earlier in the day.